The Ohio House passed bipartisan legislation Wednesday that would deploy a new set of rules dictating how power plants and others that capture their thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions – an industrial waste and major greenhouse gas – can bury them deep underground.
This carbon capture and storage technology is backed by the oil and gas industry and allows big emitters of CO2, a central driver of human-caused climate change, to at least in theory operate without exhaling carbon into the atmosphere. Once captured, the gas is compressed into a liquidlike form and pipelined to disposal wells where it’s injected thousands of feet into the earth at high pressure.
The goal of the legislation, according to sponsor Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel, whose district includes the site of the East Palestine train derailment and environmental disaster, is to give Ohio, not the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, regulatory control over any carbon capture in Ohio. The state would need to meet minimum federal standards to do so.
The state similarly has such “primacy” over regulation of fracking waste injection wells, which have been linked to earthquakes and underground and environmentally problematic leaks.
“Regulating carbon capture and storage ourselves means that the individuals who are responsible for regulatory compliance will be Ohioans,” Robb Blasdel said. “They will have a vested interest in ensuring that safety regulations are followed, and resources can be on-site rapidly if there is a need.”
The legislation would establish a legal process where operators can win legal rights to inject carbon even in places where surface or mineral-level property owners object. To do so, the developers would need permission from owners of 70% of the land in a given tract. This could create situations where most landowners say no but are outvoted by a minority who own most of the land in an area.
The legislation passed on a 91-4 vote, with only a few Democrats opposed.
An unproven and arguably clean energy technology
Carbon capture is sometimes billed as a clean energy technology as it prevents a greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. However, some in the environmental movement question its economic and technical viability and whether it distracts from the greater goal of decarbonization.
In some cases, captured carbon dioxide is used for “enhanced oil recovery” – using that carbon dioxide to help squeeze the last oil out of partially depleted wells.
Capturing and sequestration technology are unproven at scale. As of 2023, there are only 15 operational facilities across the country, according to congressional researchers, together capable of capturing just 0.4% of America’s annual carbon dioxide emissions. Those operators have struggled to bring costs down enough to be of use to heavy industry. Even if every project in the development queue opened their doors, they collectively would only address 3% of annual carbon emissions.
But Tenaska, a privately owned energy developer, is trying to establish what it calls a Tri-State CCS hub – a network of pipelines and carbon capture wells – across Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania by 2030. That would include 24 carbon dioxide injection wells in Ohio.
Delette Marengo, a lobbyist for Tenaska, told lawmakers in committee the hub would span 80,000 acres of land between the three states, chosen for their geology and their proximity to steel factories and power plants.
If passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, Ohio would become the fifth state in the nation to take regulatory “primacy” on carbon capture wells, pending approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. North Dakota, Wyoming, Louisiana and West Virginia are the only ones that have done so.
Both the American Petroleum Institute and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association urged lawmakers to pass the bill. The API didn’t respond to an interview request but a spokeswoman called it a critical step forward.
“We applaud the bipartisan effort in the House to advance this key legislation to create essential Ohio-specific CCUS regulations and embrace innovative technology to help meet our current and future energy needs, reduce emissions, and attract new investment to Ohio,” said API lobbyist Christina Polesovsky.
Is carbon capture bad for the environment?
Environmental groups are split on the idea. Some see carbon capture as an expensive and dubious effort from the oil and gas industry – principal culprits behind climate change – to clean up its mess. Others see a roadmap to limiting environmental damage of an industrial system still dependent on massive annual carbon and methane emissions stemming from fossil fuels.
Mary Turocy, a lobbyist with the Nature Conservancy in Ohio, said carbon capture is a necessary tool to limit emissions and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. That’s especially true in the steel and concrete industries, which are especially difficult to decarbonize.
However, Melanie Houston of the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund raised several concerns about the bill. It shields operators from liability for their wells after 50 years, she said in an interview, will require even more pipeline miles criss-crossing Ohio, and runs risk of similar environmental problems seen in different injection wells Ohio allows.
But from a wider lens, she questioned the value of spending time, money and resources on technology that will keep oil and gas centerstage in the modern economy.
“We don’t want to see this over reliance on this technology or slowing investment in proven emission reduction strategies,” she said.
Nathan Alley, an attorney who works with the Sierra Club’s Ohio Chapter, said he sees carbon capture as a “strategic ploy” to give a dirty industry public relations cover of non-viable technology while it continues to pollute the planet.
Others, like the Buckeye Environmental Network, have emphasized Ohio’s ongoing problems with injection wells housing liquid waste from the fracking industry. Given those wells’ well documented problems, the Buckeye Environmental Network argued Ohio regulators are in over their heads if they start trying to properly regulate a new and untested technology.
Two Washington County oil producers agreed with Buckeye Environmental. Both are arguing at the Ohio Supreme Court that “migrating” brine from gas injection wells has destroyed their oil wells. They told lawmakers during committee hearings that something similar will happen with ODNR in charge.
Landowners might not have their say
The legislation creates a “consolidation” process for developers if they can’t get all landowners on board for a project but wish to continue regardless.
The 70% threshold proposed in HB170 is greater than the 65% “unitization” threshold for fracking projects. Research has found those laws regularly work against ordinary landowners, forcing unfavorable terms and unwanted projects onto their laps.
Alley, from the Sierra Club, noted the legislature in recent years has made it exceedingly easy for neighbors and local townships to kill solar and wind energy projects. So why, he asked, would they make it so easy for people to exclude something from their own property?
“Time and again, they make it harder for these clean renewable resources to be built often when people want them in their backyard,” he said. “And instead, they make it easier for these dirty and polluting and unhealthy operations by industries that people don’t want.”